synthesis of a new magnetic nano-island titania photocatalyst and investigation of its photocatalytic activity

In this study, a new magnetic nano-island titania photocatalyst (fe3o4@sio2·tio2) was designed and fabricated. precipitation, sol-gel, and hydrothermal methods were utilized to synthesize the magnetite, silica shell, and titania islands, respectively. characterization of the synthesized catalyst was carried out by xrd, eds, ftir, sem, tem, and vsm analysis. the tem analysis revealed that the overall size of the catalyst is about 490 nm, and titania island on the magnetic core was about 50 nm. vsm analysis showed that the photocatalyst has a fantastic paramagnetic property with magnetic saturation of 52 emu g−1. furthermore, photocatalytic activity of the synthesized catalyst was evaluated in the removal of p-nitrophenol as a typical pollutant of nitro-aromatic compounds such that its degradation and mineralization efficiency were obtained at 82 and 45% after 100 and 200 min of the process, respectively, using 100 ppm of the photocatalyst in ph = 6.5.